Given substantial school autonomy in Hong Kong, different school leadership practices can yield different school environments for teachers, different degrees of teacher empowerment, and different civic teaching approaches. Principals can influence their school environment in civic learning and allocate resources to support civic education. Considerable attention has been given to the concept of ‘leading for learning’ (Goker, 2006) but there has been little attention given to civic learning in schools and how it might be facilitated by principals (Xu and Law, 2015). Given the volatile and uncertain external environment that students as future citizens face, civic learning must now be considered a priority. Kennedy, Li and Chan (2015) and Kennedy and Li (2017) have shown that school level factors can influence students’ civic learning, although the results are somewhat mixed, clearly this requires further investigation. This study extends this line of research by examining how principals create school civic teaching environments and how these influence teachers in their roles as civic educators. The results showed that the complex historical-cultural and socio-political contexts of Hong Kong have influenced school leadership when it comes to teaching civics, and the researcher has highlighted three main patterns of school leadership needed for civics teaching. When school leadership lacked a clear vision of citizenship education (pattern 1), most teachers were compliant and avoided dis-cussing sensitive political topics with their students. When school leadership mediated the diverse needs of students and balanced the different expectations of school stakeholders (pattern 2), there were both compliant and critical teachers. When school leadership had a clear vison of the school’s civic mission (pattern 3), the results differed across schools. These findings implied that principals have to significantly shift their understanding of the purposes of citizenship education

School-based management (SBM) or school self-management has been an important worldwide school restructuring movement since 1980s. This paper aims to map out how SBM in terms of self-management at the school, group and individual levels is related to school performance at different levels. From a sample of 82 schools, the strength of multi-level self-management in school was found to be strongly related to the quality indicators of organizational performance, moderately correlated to the quality indicators of group social norms of teachers, and individual teacher job performances. The profiles of strong and weak self-management schools were also found to be significantly different in most indicators of school performance at different levels. The findings provide preliminary evidence to support that the success of SBM implementation for achieving school quality depends on the involvement of the school, groups and individual teachers as a whole in continuous self-management and self-learning cycles.
[Copyright © 2003 Emerald Group Publishing Limited.]

This paper is based on a study of five primary English teachers within a professional development programme established by the British Council, the University of Nottingham/Hong Kong Institute of Education and the Taipei City Bureau of Education. The research is based on analyses of semi-structured interviews and specially written teacher’s packs for English language teaching (ELT) in schools in Taipei City. The data chart teachers’ perceptions of the impact of three stages in their professional development: improving ELT methodological skills, becoming a trainer and becoming a writer. Teachers’ professional development usually consists of in-service training (INSET), although many studies show that it may have little impact on teachers’ classroom practice. (Lamb, 1995); Bax (1995, 199) stresses the importance of context-sensitivity in teacher education courses; Freeman (1996) outlines factors in successful research on teacher learning, while Tsui (2004) examines features of teachers’ developing expertise in the East Asian context. Three key issues in the development of projects include the levels and quality of support provided, sustainability and ownership. Support was provided and sustainability maintained in five ways: the outside “expert”, a select professional development team, a networking project for primary English teachers in Taipei City, an effective project leader and an excellent level of collegiality established over three years. Ownership was achieved by building in aspects of teacher autonomy and context-sensitivity in the programme, including interviews with local practicing primary teachers for the writing project. Within the three stages of professional development, the data provide insights into teachers’ perceptions of the role of the “expert” and their colleagues. The data also chart teachers’ reflections on their learning processes, showing the extent to which they feel confident enough to continue supporting other English teachers. Longitudinal

This study focused on the collaborative structure-building behavior of school principals and examined how such behavior affects teacher empowerment. More important, it tested the mediating effects of participative management and learning culture. By collecting nested data from 104 schools in Hong Kong and adopting multilevel structural equation modeling, we found that teachers' sense of autonomy and self-efficacy were correlated at the individual level but were independent at the school level. The effect of building collaborative structures on teachers' self-efficacy was mediated by both participative management and learning culture, whereas the effect on autonomy was mediated by participative management only. The findings contribute to the literature in at least 2 ways. First, the inclusion of both principal leadership and school-level factors provides more refined predications of teacher empowerment. Second, the testing of the theory-grounded hypotheses in an Asian society verifies the validity of certain cultural assertions about this region.
[Copyright of School Effectiveness and School Improvement is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09243453.2014.888086]

This paper examines teachers' experiences of autonomy as they undertook Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in the form of Teacher Learning Communities (TLCs) to develop Assessment for Learning (AfL). Participant teacher interview data were used from two parallel TLC projects, one in Hong Kong and one in London, UK. Autonomy was defined in terms of taking initiatives, acting independently and making critical inquiries. Links between autonomy and effective CPD were argued and the findings indicated that some teachers in both the projects experienced limited autonomy in terms of taking initiatives and being critical, although several described a new sense of professional independence as they attended TLCs. Their limited autonomy looked likely to inhibit the long-lasting impact of the projects, although one TLC in London seemed likely to shape teachers' AfL principles and practices more profoundly because attendance was voluntary and egalitarian.
[Copyright of Teacher Development is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2012.748686]